Free Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur Page A

have five sisters waiting to get married either. And do you think it makes her mother happy to have her daughter unmarried? She may say what she likes about jobs and modern women, but I know how hard she still tries to find a husband for Shaku, and how bad she feels. You want to do the same to me? To your father and grandfather?’
    ‘No, no‚’ said Virmati feebly.
    ‘You are the eldest, Viru, your duty is greater. You know how much the younger ones look up to you. Your grandfather and father both have confidence in you, otherwise would they have given you so much freedom? They thought school and college would strengthen you, not change you. Now what will they feel when you want us to break our word and destroy our good name? How will they understand it?’
    By now the cotton was almost completely pulled to pieces. Virmati knew being the eldest meant being responsible. It was unfair on the part of her mother to think that, after all those years of looking after them, she could even think of harming her siblings.
    ‘I’m not harming anybody by studying, Mati,’ she pleaded.
    ‘You harm by not marrying. What about Indu? How long will she have to wait? What is more, the boy is getting impatient. What about him?’
    ‘Tell him I don’t want to marry‚’ whispered Virmati, hanging her head still lower.
    ‘ Hai re . After making him wait so long? What were you doing all this time? Sleeping?’ Kasturi’s voice was rough with exasperation.
    ‘Let Indumati marry. Give her this khes you are making. I don’t want any bedding, pots and pans, nothing!’ Virmati was growing frantic.
    ‘What nonsense!’ exclaimed Kasturi. ‘And what about his family? What face are we going to show them? Do you think you find such good boys every day?’
    ‘Mati, please, I want to study …’ Virmati faltered.
    ‘But you have studied. What else is left?’
    ‘In Lahore … I want to go to Lahore …’
    Kasturi could bear her daughter’s foolishness no further. She grabbed her by the hair and banged her head against the wall.
    ‘Maybe this will knock some sense into you!’ she cried. ‘What crimes did I commit in my last life that I should be cursed with a daughter like you in this one?’ She let go of the girl’s head, and started to wail, rocking to and fro. The reels of thread spilt from her lap. Virmati moved to pick them up.

    Kasturi slapped her hand away. ‘Leave them there, you ungrateful girl!’ she hissed. ‘Otherwise you do just what you want! Why bother with the show of picking up thread! Get away from my sight‚’ Kasturi’s face was purple with fury. As Virmati got up, she said coldly, ‘Remember you are going to be married next month, if I have to swallow poison to make you do it!’
    Slowly Virmati dragged herself away. As Kasturi watched her daughter’s retreating back, the arms swinging uselessly by their sides, the head buried between hunched shoulders, her own despair increased. What had come over the girl? She had always been so good and sensible. How could she not see that her happiness lay in marrying a decent boy, who had waited patiently all these years, to whom the family had given their word? What kind of learning was this, that deprived her of her reason? She too knew the value of education, it had got her her husband, and had filled her hours with the pleasure of reading. In her time, going to school had been a privilege, not to be abused by going against one’s parents. How had girls changed so much in just a generation?

XI
     
     
    Sultanpur, West Punjab, 1904. Kasturi was seven and had been going to the mission school for only a few months when her parents caught her praying to a picture of Christ, something the nice Bengali teacher said she herself did. Her mother had torn the picture, screamed and shouted, and threatened to marry her off, before she brought further disgrace to the family. It was her uncle who intervened.
    There was no question of Kasturi becoming a bride, he said.